The principles, values and manifestations of multilateralism, including the United Nations, are under sustained scrutiny and assault. Their performance and effectiveness are questioned, as are their decision-making procedures and their representation according to 21st century standards of accountability and democracy. All this has a corrosive effect on their legitimacy. This publication explores the performance and future of multilateral approaches and institutions with reference to major global challenges such as international security, terrorism, HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, economic justice, human rights and humanitarian assistance.--Publisher's description.

'The Iraq war was a multiple assault on the foundations and rules of the existing UN-centered world order. It called into question the adequacy of the existing institutions for articulating global norms and enforcing compliance with the demands of the international community. It highlighted also the unwillingness of some key countries to wait until definitive proof before acting to meet the danger of the world's most destructive weapons falling into the hands of the world's most dangerous regimes. It was simultaneously a test of the UN's willingness and ability to deal with brutal dictatorships and a searching scrutiny of the nature and exercise of American power. The United States is the world's indispensable power, but the United Nations is the world's indispensable institution. The UN Security Council is the core of the international law enforcement system and the chief body for building, consolidating and using the authority of the international community. The United Nations has the primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security, and is structured to discharge this responsibility in a multipolar world where the major powers have permanent membership of the key collective security decision-making body, namely the UN SecurityCouncil. The emergence of the United States as the sole superpower after the end of the Cold War distorted the structural balance in the UN schema. The United Nations is the main embodiment of the principle of multilateralism and the principal vehicle for the pursuit of multilateral goals. The United States has global power, soft as well as hard; the United Nations is the fount of international authority. Progress towards a world of a rules-based, civilized international order requires that US force be put to the service of lawful international authority. This book examines these major normative and structural challenges from a number of different perspectives.--Publisher's description.'--From source other than the Library of Congress

The stated reason for invading Iraq was its alleged clandestine pursuit of weapons of mass destruction in defiance of UN resolutions. Even though the allegation was proven false, the international community remains preoccupied with the threat of the proliferation and use of such terrible weapons. The questions discussed in this book include doctrinal issues regarding the use of force in general; the implications of a shift in the utility of nuclear weapons from deterrence to compliance and of a focus on non-proliferation to the neglect of disarmament; the place and role of the United Nations in controlling the spread and use of WMD; the regional dynamics of proliferation concerns in North-east Asia and the Middle East; and the threats posed by the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons and missiles by non-state actors.--Publisher's ddescription.

Product Description: The most comprehensive disarmament treaty ever adopted, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), is intended to ensure that chemical weapons will not be developed, produced, stockpiled, used, or transferred. To implement and enforce the CWC and verify the ongoing elimination of declared chemical weapons production capacity and stockpiles, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspects military and industrial sites in dozens of countries...read more

Product Description: The system of global governance is under serious challenge. Some scholars and practitioners have suggested that the time has come for the establishment of new multilateral forums that reflect 21st century realities. One option attracting increased attention is to create a summit of the leaders of 20 nations (L20), an institution that draws its inspiration from both the current G7/8 leaders' meetings and the G20 finance ministers' meetings...read more

Product Description: How are good ideas for enhancing global governance converted into policy initiatives and international institutions? One major route has been through international commissions. The names of many are well known: Brandt, Palme, Brundtland, Kosovo, the Commission on Global Governance, and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty...read more

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Product Description: Almost the entire southern hemisphere is now covered by nuclear-weapon-free zones. The ones in Latin America and the South Pacific were established during the Cold War, those in Southeast Asia and Africa after its ending. Zones have also been proposed, so far without success, for the Middle East, South Asia and Northeast Asia...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The United Nations opened up new horizons in 1945. But the steps taken since then have been small hesitant and limited. The founding dream of a world community equal in rights and united in vision has never come close to being realized...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: India, with its 900 million inhabitants, is the world's most populous democracy whose success in sustaining its democratic institutions in the face of deep internal divisions and cleavages makes it of special interest to the student of comparative politics...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: In this distinctive book, an international cast of contributors combines case studies and analytical approaches to exploreboth critically and sympatheticallythe landscape of UN peacekeeping efforts in the 1990s. Setting the stage with a discussion of the rapidly changing nature of peacekeeping, the contributors examine all UN operations of the 1990s...read more

Product Description: The break-up of the Soviet Union in 1989 deprived India of its principal ally, politically and economically, and led to a reassessment of India's diplomatic and trading priorities. In this thorough analysis of the conduct of Indian foreign policy since Independence, the author argues that India should abandon its traditional policies of nonalignment, strengthen its economic and political links with the West and deal constructively with domestic problems such as Kashmir, Punjab, Assam and the minority communities...read more